The Gift of Girlfriends

flickr photo by fleecetraveler

Sometimes I wonder if I'm God's favorite.

Maybe He keeps my picture in His wallet. And thinks of ways to make me smile, just because He likes me.

It's just that I've had a pretty rough few weeks. Seems my body has turned into an amusement park for hormones. Do you think they giggle as my moods race up the roller coaster and then whoosh! over the top, down down down... the whole ride ending in a nice big sobbing pity-party?

Yeah.

I wasn't giggling so much.

So the days have been challenging, but they have also been sprinkled with sweetness.

Like the sun breaking through the clouds at the right moment. Or impossible solutions that just come out of nowhere.

But frankly, I'm pretty sure I'm His favorite because of the girlfriends.

The abundance of listening caring women in my world is just over the top. He must like me. Really like me.

Last Monday it was a play date, and tea on the couch.

Tuesday it was praying over Skype. Then a friend who drove an hour through the rain for dinner at a restaurant with tablecloths.

Thursday? A bonanza... eight women, bible study... tears, prayer, laughter.

Even Friday at the park, gentle eyes asking questions.

And Sunday, two sweet sisters at church, and several more online, with hard-won practical advice for weathering the hormonal storms. Even more moving... their tender understanding of those feelings that made me wonder if maybe I was edging toward lunacy.

What a treasure. To have women in my life who really hear me and care enough to respond. Women who don't live life shallow, who look hard in the face of pain, for Jesus.

These are women who I want to be like. I don't deserve them.

We girls, we do need our men. We were made that way. But we also need our sisters. I don't have biological sisters. But I have some truly incredible sisters in Christ. Women who walk the humble and the hard, and strain each day for holiness.

These are women who make me want to be better. They love me, the real me... all messy and wondering and passionate and confused. They are all about grace. They are safe.

I know. There are blessings in loneliness. There are seasons of growing with only Him, only turning to Him.

But I think our amazingly creative sunset-painting Father thought up girlfriends just because He thinks we're swell.

I'm glad He's so smart.

And you? You're His favorite too.  xoxoxoxo

(This song, this week?  Oh yes.  Go ahead... listen... Christa Wells is another gift)

Frame the Clouds

Oh friend what a great listener you are

You sit across the table with your coffee long gone

And I am talking about the books that I’ve been reading

when the house is dark and still

All the words, all the words

all the words, they are my fingers on a face

oh the words

looking for patterns in the shapes

You’re so good

to be a witness to my sounds

trying to frame the clouds

My feet are stepping on new earth all the time

discovery lights the fraying wires of my mind

for every one good answer, two more questions

and it all feels incomplete

‘til the words,’ til the words

Chorus

Well I wish I had more show for the years I’ve been alive

there’s more to learn before I go than there is time

So friends don’t take me wrong on those days when I sound too sure

of the things I say, I say

Chorus

I’m trying to frame the clouds

To Dominica, Sandy, Teresa, Pat, Misty, Dawn, Jenn and more... thank you. You breathed life and hope into my week.

  

Our Magic Mountain

It's two weeks today. Two weeks that the children and I have been on this mountain, breathing deep the cool air, smelling the pines, listening to the birds and breeze weave a summer symphony.

We left behind heat and brown and the crunch of dead grass. We don't miss it. But husband/father, selfless man, who works so that we can be here, who stayed home to tend the animals... him we miss.

We arrived here close to midnight after winding our way precariously up switchback turns of dirt road, in the heavy dark of mountain night. I prayed as I steered, having seen massive elk mere feet from our wheels. At last we crunched to a gravelly stop in the driveway.

I unlocked the house door, returned to the van to retrieve sleepy children, and dropped my keys through the cracks of the porch. We peered down and knew... no more driving tonight. Relief.

The next day was a whirl of unpacking and readying, so much anticipation for what was to come... the reason for our visit. Balloons went up, signs were hung, miniature bouquets assembled. But still there was time to find old friends in the rocks.

Sunday dawned bright and beautiful. Fifteen minutes after I woke, still groggily getting dressed, an excited voice called, "There's a hummingbird in the house!"

Tiny flutterer, green with bright red throat, careened between high windows. For four hours. He kept us home from church. He knew, just knew, that the way out was up. But he was wrong. The doors were down. Finally I found hummingbird feeders in the garage and hung them in the open doors. He couldn't resist. Down he flew, and waiting on the other side, freedom.

Then the cooking began. And the questions.

"When will they be here?"
"How much longer?"
"So what is the earliest possible time they could arrive?"
"What would you say is the absolute latest they would come?"
"Do you think they are driving toward us now?"

Soon. Soon.

I was standing at the sink when I saw a tall boy walk by the window, and I confess, I screamed.  Because that boy was my first godson, my son's best friend, who lives 3000 miles away from us.  And behind him came his sisters and my dear dear friend, his mother.

I was not the only one who screamed.  The squeals and the laughter and the jumping... no bears would trouble this house on the mountain!

It was a chorus of love, a bursting out of a longing met and a hope fulfilled and old friends holding and beholding, and oh it was so very good.  Yes, a taste of heaven, that reunion.

And then, of course, we ate.  Because food always seems to be at the center of celebration.

The evening turned to night, the night to day, the days to weeks, and here we are together still... a tribe of vacationing loved ones.  There have been plays performed and walks taken and outings made.  There have been movie nights and cherry pit spitting contests and three-legged races.  Puzzles pieced, games played... even a birthday party with presents.

We'll part one week from today.  We'll exchange hugs and tears on the rim of the Grand Canyon, then one van will drive east and the other west.  Three thousand miles is a long way.  We don't know when we'll meet again.

But, and I know it sounds so cliche, but it's true... there is no distance in the heart.  We'll drive away in body, but we'll stay with each other somehow.  This mystery, this gift... that when you love, you don't have to be together to be together... all I can do is accept it gratefully.

And for now, give more hugs while I can.